The invention relates to a process for the manufacture of a recombined milk powder, a dietetic formula, a culinary product or a coffee base.
Recombined milk powders are normally manufactured by dissolving all the powdered constituents in water. The oils or the liquid fats are added and the mixture is then homogenized, evaporated and spray-dried. This means that the non-fatty portion of such a product has been dried twice.
The aim of the present invention is to eliminate the second spray-drying because it is very costly. Various attempts have already been made to eliminate the second spray-drying step. U.S. Pat. No. 4,318,932 relates to a process for the manufacture of an instant dried milk, in which an emulsion based on milk cream is prepared and then mixed with a milk powder base in a specific agglomeration chamber. According to this process, it is necessary to carry out a high-pressure homogenisation and for the operation to be carried out in an agglomeration chamber which is specially designed for the process. Moreover, this process does not make it possible to obtain a final powder having a fat content greater than 12%, and it is limited to the use of a lipid phase which is purely of milk origin.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,911,300 also relates to a process for the preparation of recombined milk powder. The basic problem for this process is that the milk powder must first be prepared in a specific manner before preparing the mixture with the lipid phase, which requires a special plant for the agglomeration of the milk powder, and moreover, after mixing with the emulsion, high water contents are reached, which require high energy use for drying.